Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Lionsgate has partnered with Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Films to acquire rights to the November 2008 GQ Magazine article “Will You Be My Black Friend?”

The article is a story about a GQ senior correspondent Devin Friedman and how he attempted to make friends with people of color.

Following a cocktail party epiphany that his entire social circle is the same color as he, the white writer made an unabashed attempt to make black friends, down to soliciting prospective pals in a Craigslist ad. Freidman concluded that despite race, it's hard to make meaningful friends later in life.

The film is supposed to be a star vehicle for Chris Rock, however I'm not sure how since it would seem that Rock would be a supporting actor rather than the star with what I get from the article. Winfrey is producing via her Harpo Films company.

Not sure what this project is gonna be like but I will say that the article offended me. It seemed like the writer was just putting on an experiment at the expense of blacks and it didn't seem like he was sincere in his quest to find more black friends. I would have respected him a lot more if he hadn't pitched this as an article and just genuinely went out looking to make black friends that he planned to keep. Sigh...

Click the pic above to check out the original article. It's pretty long but let me know if it rubs you the wrong way like it did me.